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belthasar

95 karma · joined October 8, 2012

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belthasar··on Watch TV from the 90s and earlier
I linked directly to the schedule. Go to the home page to see the video.

https://www.toonamiaftermath.com

belthasar··on Watch TV from the 90s and earlier
I'd also recommend Toonami Aftermath. It has a bunch of shows from the mid 90s to the mid 00s. The Saturday morning line up is really great.

https://www.toonamiaftermath.com/schedule

You can also get it running in Plex (requires Plex pass) with these two projects:

https://github.com/chris102994/docker-toonamiaftermath

https://github.com/xteve-project/xTeVe

belthasar··on Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
I’ve used Home Assistant on a Pi 3B+ for about a year now. My main objective is like yours, I want as few devices as possible connected to the internet and generally only buy devices that have a local API (local polling in HA terms). I do pay for Nabu Casa, HA’s cloud service for convenient access to everything but nothing I use requires it. This also help support a project that I really enjoy using and rely on.

I have most devices connected to an old wireless router that is completely disconnected from the internet. The raspberry pi is connected to my main network through ethernet and is connected to my “smart network” over wifi. I like to think of the HA instance as a two way mirror since it can reach the internet and see the devices but the devices themselves can’t phone home or access the internet in anyway.

For bulbs, light switches, and smart plugs I generally stick with TP-Link Kasa. The local API works great with HA though I believe they are removing this in future firmware updates [0]. This appears to be for the UK only but I’m not 100% sure on that. I purchased a plug a few months ago that still works.

My thermostat is a Venstar color touch with the local API. I have it connected to the internet but I could disconnect it and everything would still work how I want.

You can flash Wyze v2 cameras with the official RTSP firmware to view them locally. You lose some of the features of the Wyze cams but I think this is a fine trade off. While this works with the Pi, streaming video taxes it a lot. It isn’t a perfect experience by any means.

I also use Zigbee devices instead of Z-Wave (no real reason other than the first device I wanted was Zigbee). I have a Sonoff Zigbee bridge flashed with Tasmota that allows me to use any compliant (or quasi compliant in the case of Xiaomi Aqara) plug, motion sensor, temp sensor, etc across brands. The Zigbee bridge is also has access to the internet because it needs to connect to an NTP server. This means that these devices work fine when the internet goes out but if for some reason the hub gets power cycled while having an internet outage they stop working.

You can get Zigbee antennas that connect directly to the Pi but I avoided this because the USB ports can cause interference. You can fix this by getting a USB cable extender.

Feel free to ask any other questions about my setup.

[0] https://alerts.home-assistant.io/#tplink.markdown

belthasar··on Ask HN: What was your experience moving from Xamarin to native iOS/Android
Thank you for the suggestion but we're either staying with Xamarin or going native.

I'd rather optimize the Xamarin code than use a web framework for a mobile app. On iOS you don't have any control over how the web view renders your app. Any future update could break your app.

belthasar··on In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions
I could never put it into words before but I think this is the reason I dislike Facebook and social media in general. It looks like a big contest of who can show how much they believe in x and it all seems so fake.
belthasar··on Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary
Thanks, I didn't know that.
belthasar··on Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary
Small correction, the Wii U does not play GameCube discs. Other than with Smash Brothers there is no way to use the GameCube controller.
belthasar··on 1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA
One line up?

"In each case, they tested the individual ingredients against the bacteria, as well as the remedy and a control solution."

belthasar··on Show HN: App Shortcuts – A Simple App Launcher for Fire TV
The Fire TV app has been in review for 4 weeks. I figured it would be easier to release the APK for now.
belthasar··on Show HN: App Shortcuts – A Simple App Launcher for Fire TV
There is an Android version but it was removed for violating terms. I'm trying to appeal the rejection.
belthasar··on I hate working hard
Nice. I think this is the blog.

http://www.eyesonsales.com/content/article/the_6_keys_to_bei...

belthasar··on Hater News – Now for Twitter and Reddit
Putting an @ before my twitter handle made it work for me.
belthasar··on Show HN: MealDays – Meal planner for my wife
I've been using the meal planner that Allrecipes[0] has and I really like it. I'd love to try this too but having multiple meals or even side dishes per day is necessary.

[0]http://allrecipes.com/menus/main.aspx?e3=TB_3.0.0_Menu-Plann...

belthasar··on XD - a messaging app that looks radically different
Too bad it only works with Facebook chat. I'd love to use this if I could put the images in a text message.
belthasar··on Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7
I currently have an app in the store that has been optimized for iOS 7 but works as far back as iOS 5.1. You could probably support earlier versions as long as you verify the OS supports a feature/method before calling it.
belthasar··on Ask HN: Why are POS systems all POSes?
I've been working on a mobile POS for vendors at markets and fairs for the last year or so. I built it mainly so that my wife could keep track of things when selling her stuff at conventions.

I think one problem is that everyone wants something different. I've been contacted by people who run festivals that want very specific functionality. It is hard to build that while keeping a feature set that most other people would find useful.

belthasar··on The iOS 7 review
The slow keyboard input happens to me on my iPhone 4. I can type a whole text message and not see any of it for 5-10 seconds.

I suspect it has something to do with auto correct/spell check but I haven't tested anything yet.

belthasar··on Android Is Not Better. Neither Is iOS.
>"When you move your SIM card from an iOS device to a non-iOS device, there's a period of time during which Apple accepts iMessages for your number, especially when you have other devices configured with iMessage."

If you turn off iMessage before removing the sim card this won't happen.

I do this all the time when switching between my HTC One X and iPhone 4.

belthasar··on Soylent reaches $1M in pre-orders
"Rhinehart has five dietitians and medical professionals who work with the company on an advisory basis."
belthasar··on Android vs. iOS: Comparing the Development Process of the GQueues Mobile Apps
I was able to pick up SQLite much faster than CoreData. It just made more sense to me.

I was building the iOS and Android versions side by side, so a solution that was similar in both platforms was important.

belthasar··on Properly configure Google Apps' Gmail and get rid of "via"
If you use Mandrill to send your emails you'll want to do this too.

http://help.mandrill.com/entries/21751322-What-are-SPF-and-D...

belthasar··on Google Chromecast
The banner that offered 3 months of Netflix service is now gone for me. It was there when I ordered mine.
belthasar··on What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)
You can get a free Amazon EC2 instance for a year to play around on. http://aws.amazon.com/free/

It has been a great learning experience for me.

belthasar··on The future beyond bookmarking - Welcome to new Kippt
http://gimmebar.com does that for you. It saves the page as an image.
belthasar··on Ask HN: Resources for learning IOS programming
The biggest help for me was The Big Nerd Ranch book for iOS. http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp/...

By the second chapter I felt confident enough to start trying things out on my own and tutorials made a lot more sense.

belthasar··on Twenty dollars in an envelope
When I had a paid app in the app store price didn't seem matter too much.

I had a free version of the app with IAP and a paid version. Both initially cost $0.99 but after 6 months I raised the price to $1.99. Sales actually went up. I think if you have an app people like and you have good reviews, price isn't as important.

Graph for paid app https://www.dropbox.com/s/s7zvicfuan9ci5n/paid.png?m

Graph for IAP https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ddr15si5qp5bux/iap.png?m

belthasar··on Top Feburary Startups To Watch
Very happy to be featured in this. Thanks a lot Franco!
belthasar··on Orchestra’s Mailbox app now reservable in the App Store
Unless my computer can run iOS, I'm confused by your comment.
belthasar··on Orchestra’s Mailbox app now reservable in the App Store
I hate that it is only available for iOS 6. I can't upgrade from 5.1 because my Mac is too old to use the newer versions of Xcode.
belthasar··on The sound of the dialup, pictured
Nice reference :) Earthbound has always been my favorite.
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